Guest Profile: Kathy Pace
Kathy Cragg Pace is a megawatt beacon of growth, expertly guiding window treatment sales professionals into the world of thriving they deserve. In a sea of sales sameness, Kathy helps design sales pros fearlessly find their success with her Modern Sales Way, encouraging them to throw out everything we’ve all been taught about “closing a sale,” replacing it with the brightness of human connection and learning how to deliver an irresistible selling experience.
Her specialty is helping businesses look at their existing sales process and implement her Modern Sales methods quickly and painlessly, so they can finally move beyond the most common objections without any of the “salesyness” so often taught in traditional training. You’ll learn the art of “the stretch to connect” so you can thrive in design sales.
Throughout her extensive career, she’s led her own award-winning design franchise, real-estate and custom home-building companies, a North American network of large and small window-covering business owners, and a nationwide sales team of in-home design professionals. She’s worked with the biggest names in the industry, and influenced $450 Million dollars in sales. This pro knows!
Kathy’s Modern Sales Way includes a course, sales tools, and coaching, available for the first time to entrepreneurial businesses. She guarantees results, and she generously shares thought-provoking insights, memorable selling stories, and free downloadable guides.
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Transcript
Will Hanke – WTMP (00:00)
Welcome to the next episode of Marketing Panes. My name is Will Hanke. This is your go -to podcast when it comes to window treatment and awning marketing. Each month we bring you insights from industry experts and fellow business owners sharing tips, tools, and strategies to boost your online presence and drive growth. Excited about my guest today, we’re going to be talking about sales.
And in today’s environment, that’s probably something we need to be paying attention to a little bit more than we have maybe in the past couple of years. My guest is Kathy Cragg Pace. She is a megawatt beacon of growth, expertly guiding window treatment sales professionals into the world of thriving they deserve. that sounds really good. I like that. a sea of… Yeah, not surviving. You’re right. Thriving. Great. In a sea of sales sameness,
Kathy Pace (00:45)
Not surviving. Thriving.
Will Hanke – WTMP (00:52)
Cathy helps design sales pros fearlessly find their success with a modern sales way, encouraging them to throw out everything they’ve been taught about closing a sale, replacing it with the brightness of human connection, and learning how to deliver an irresistible selling experience. That sounds fantastic so far. Cathy’s specialty is helping businesses.
Look at their existing sales process and implement her modern sales methods quickly and painlessly so they can finally move beyond the most common objections without any sales enos so often taught in traditional training. You’ll learn the art of the stretch to connect so you can thrive in design sales. So we’ve got some things to dissect here, Kathy. Thanks for being on today.
Kathy Pace (01:43)
You are so welcome. I’ve been so excited to share with you and your audience
Will Hanke – WTMP (01:49)
Awesome. Well, it’s great having you on. I’m curious about some of the things that were in your intro. And I guess we’re going to get into those as we go on. So tell me with the audience how you got started in the sales industry and what led you to design or led you to focus specifically on in -home design services.
Kathy Pace (02:10)
Right? Because who would choose to be a salesperson or a sales specialist? know, everybody avoids a salesperson unless we absolutely have to talk to them. But early in my career, it wasn’t design sales. was actually mortgage sales. And yeah, mortgage sales. And I. Caught what the bug that
Will Hanke – WTMP (02:13)
Hahaha.
okay.
Kathy Pace (02:34)
was actually, my gosh, unlimited opportunity. If you can stomach it, know, commission sales is what really caught my eye. And I had a fantastic mentor, person that I worked for. I literally was his assistant. And he, like all the other assistants, sat outside in the bullpen, let’s call it, but he moved my desk into his office so that I heard everything he said.
everything he did. And I was like, wow, this guy really connects with people. And because he wasn’t afraid to share his secrets, the things that had been made him successful, I learned and between the two of us, we became a powerhouse. I was able to put a down payment on our first home in California, mind you, from one commission check. So that’s when the bug
Will Hanke – WTMP (03:29)
wow.
Kathy Pace (03:31)
having your income related to what you can sell and how well you can sell it really sunk in. But mortgages was not exactly all that sexy. It wasn’t really what I wanted to do. I’d always loved and studied design. And so, but now I really needed to earn money at it. So anyway, I bought a design franchise.
which was a significant investment, which meant I needed to earn money. I didn’t want to just design for fun. I needed to have a profitable business. And so that’s kind of how the two came together. bought a, actually I bought a decorating den franchise and that is taking all your samples, come to their door, sell.
Will Hanke – WTMP (04:18)
Okay.
Kathy Pace (04:23)
in the home because that’s where people make decisions about those kinds of things in their home. And so I made in -home design sales my specialty. That’s how came to
Will Hanke – WTMP (04:37)
Okay, wow, okay. And that world is still pretty much the same from the standpoint of getting an appointment, getting into the home and making the sale. But I think over the years, the sales environment has probably changed drastically in our business. Tell me what you think about
Kathy Pace (04:54)
I think as anything, the environment goes up. When you’ve been around for a while, you have seen the sales environment go up and down and sideways and forwards. The thing that I think has most drastically changed, I’m just going to say in the last year or
is the motivation behind what is making people purchase and how to get people to buy. But before we launch in on that, I think we have to kind of talk a little bit about why people don’t buy. Because why people don’t buy, those reasons that people don’t buy, they’ve been the same.
forever and ever. Your listeners hear them all day, every day. They know them. They could listen. There’s really maybe four. They could list them off on their finger just like me. You know, okay, let me think about it. I got to talk to somebody else about it. It was more than I thought it was going to cost. I’m getting other estimates. I’m comparing. Those reasons why people don’t buy, but the one, the thing that just
breaks the heart of the every person, every, no matter how strong a salesperson you are, is when your client closes the door and says, okay, I’ll get back to you. And that’s really the beginning of, I’m gonna say the road to my sales success.
Will Hanke – WTMP (06:26)
yeah.
Kathy Pace (06:36)
You know, I have mentioned to you, I think before we did a little back of napkin calculating and $450 million in sales track record, not me personally, but the teams that I lead and the methodology. But the road to $450 million was not paved in glamour. It was paved, I’m going to call it
I’ve told the story so many times and I think everyone listening will hear a little bit of themselves and the selling situation that we’re in right now in this story, even though I’m going to start with August 1990.
leaving my client’s house after they’ve just closed the door and said, I’ll think about it and get back to you. And I’m walking down the driveway, that client, I’d been in her home, it was summer, it was hot, she didn’t have air conditioning. I was wearing my lucky sales outfit, which wasn’t very lucky that day, by the way. So I was sweaty and sticky and mad.
And I was lugging my samples back to the van and I put them in and I went around on the driver’s side where she couldn’t see me through the window and literally I just lost it to some extent and I took my bag. I can remember this. I just slammed it down in the street in this fit of frustration and I’m like, fork.
this, fork this. I cannot do this anymore. I am so tired of proposals that don’t go anywhere and quotes that people say they’ll get back. I’m just so tired of this. And literally I got in the van and I drove away and I did I’m not happy to
it didn’t get much better. You know, I’m getting more frosted and more mad at myself and I’m angry and I’m irritated and I’ve got chapped lips because when I threw my bag on the street, literally, I can remember watching my chapstick roll out of the bag and under the van and end up in this muddy puddle and it was just like perfect. So that kind of, I’ve had it.
Will Hanke – WTMP (09:15)
Course.
Kathy Pace (09:20)
I’ve had it is so challenging when you’re in a market when people are hesitating or when you don’t know how to get people to just say yes. Just say yes. So, you know, I drove away. The air conditioning, thank goodness, is on in the van.
The van, which was my everyday ride now because I had mortgaged my house to buy my franchise. I’d sold my nice car. I was now driving the colorful store that comes to your door. This great big, very large signed wrapped business vehicle. Our second car, we’d sold the other one because it had
Car payment too. So our second car was one we could afford. It was so embarrassing to drive. It was this Toyota Tercel and we called it the Turd and I’m gonna never was a name more fitting. so anyway, I just was thinking I gave up my career. I gave up my benefits. I gave up my car. I gave up all of that for this. This was
living the dream. This was living the frustration and the, you know, it just was really challenging. And so by now the air conditioning is blowing and I’m cooling down a little bit. Salespeople can’t stay, you know, mad forever. We got to be able to pick ourselves back up again. So I kind of started to feel maybe a little bit of a sliver of hope with the cool air. And I made a vow to myself, essentially, I said,
one year. I’m not quitting now. One year. Figure it out or get out because I am not going to live with this. Maybe I’m not good enough. Maybe I’m not cut out for this. Maybe this I just did not like all of that. Figure it out or get out. And so I started to look and I would say if you’re listening to this story now you can do this exact same thing. I started to look at every single
like I was solving a puzzle because I was like I was there was a mystery to be solved what will it take for my client to be able to say yes and it was a mystery I needed to solve like my life depended on it because at that point it pretty much did and I kind of broke it down you know one
The good news is I’ve been in business for a year, I’d survived for a year, I knew the problems, I knew the four main things people said. And when you know the problem, you can find the solution. And that’s the hope in it for people in these market conditions, whatever market conditions we’re in. When you know the problem, you can absolutely find the solution. So I had to take it one objection or one…
thing that people said to get me out of their house without giving me their money, one at a time, and break it down, like, what will it take? What can I proactively do to make it so that that thing doesn’t catch me at the end of the appointment, that I can handle
early on and get it out of the way. But in order to find out the information that I needed, I really needed a client who wasn’t resisting me. Like people resist a salesperson, like people resist a designer that they’re afraid of, this natural resistance shield. And so that really is how I came
to come up with what I now call 30 years later, I call it the modern sales way, but it’s the way that I developed a selling experience that no matter the business environment really cuts through the natural resistance that everybody has towards a salesperson and creates receptive clients.
who will take action, who will actually get over their fear of making a mistake, get over their fear of it’s gonna be expensive, get over all those fears that hold them back from saying yes and help them because only when they buy can they enjoy the transformation in their home and only when they buy can I enjoy the fruits of my efforts.
Will Hanke – WTMP (14:02)
Yeah, for sure.
Kathy Pace (14:04)
So getting over that hesitation, whether it’s in the environment today, really any, it’s a universal problem. But today’s environment, to get back to your original question, today’s environment is, we’re not gonna lie, this is challenging. We came out of a situation a couple of years ago, people were throwing money at us.
They had nothing else to spend on except for making their home better because they couldn’t do anything else. And probably if we’re honest with ourselves, we developed some bad habits. I’m gonna talk about we sales people, sales professionals, we developed some bad habits. Some we had to, we had to get in and get out, we had to stay far away, we couldn’t have long extended appointments, people were kind of afraid. You just had to get down to business and get her done.
And getting down to business and getting it done quickly in today’s environment is not what will break down resistance. We’ve changed. We’ve changed as a society. First of all, we’ve changed because our money is going less far. I mean, you, me.
Every single one of us were a little more guarded of our discretionary dollars. And I don’t know about you, but I have a few less than I used to have. also, I think
If COVID did anything for us, it really made us figure out what’s important. That’s why there’s been the great change in career, like what’s important and what I’m gonna say as it relates to our industry, what we’re over collectively, our selling environment, we’re over transactions, over
We want, we have lots of likes and follows and transactionally this is and that’s, but we have very little connection. And when sales people offer connection, that in a meaningful way, it resonates. It is something different that other
sales pros or other salespeople are not taking the time. That’s why I say in the intro you heard mastering the art of the stretch to connect because it takes more skill, it takes more time, it takes more effort, but if you don’t do that you’re gonna get let me think about it and get back to
Will Hanke – WTMP (16:46)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I love the idea of the relationship, right? Making those connections with people instead of just trying to get the sale. And when I started in sales, that’s what I thought sales was, was just getting somebody on a phone and getting them to say yes, right?
Kathy Pace (16:51)
huh.
And you know, everybody talks to, I get asked all the time, how can I sell more? And they think the number one thing they want to learn, you know, the number one thing they ask for, how do I overcome objections? And I’m going to say, throw that out the window. First of all, nobody wants to be overcome. Nobody wants to be closed. The number one thing.
Will Hanke – WTMP (17:29)
Right.
Kathy Pace (17:32)
to learn in sales is how to lower the resistance shield because that thing is up. It is 100 % up and walking into somebody’s house and just saying, know, you have a lovely home, Mrs. Smith. I really like your neighborhood. That’s not enough. That is not enough to build a relationship, to set somebody at ease.
When you are good at that, you really are offering something now that is very different than, let me come in, give you a quote, find three different products, which one do you like best? Here’s how much it costs. Okay, thanks, I’m getting more estimates, here we go.
Will Hanke – WTMP (18:16)
Yeah, I know you called that client hesitation, right? Client hesitation is the killer there, I guess. So what are some? Yeah, yeah. What are some strategies that businesses can use or salespeople can use to kind of overcome
Kathy Pace (18:20)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, that let me think about it and get back to you.
Love that. Excellent question. So I’m going to say it really two things right off the bat. can come immediately to my mind. First thing TMI equals hesitation. We have a tendency as pros. We have a lot of products, a lot of different customizations that do a lot of different things and we go in and we spend
a lot of the appointment talking about our products and our options and our upgrades and our this’s and our that’s and we don’t make it easy to buy from us when we give we overwhelm the client if you confuse you lose you’ve heard that before probably but TMI equals hesitation what what that does
the person’s in their analytical brain, the analytical brain is slow. It has to process all that information, process all that data. It has to think about it. So when you give them so much to think about, they’re not going to make a decision. The decision they’re going to make is, got to think about this. So we have to make it exactly, we have to make it really easy to buy from us. And the thing is, if you spend a
Will Hanke – WTMP (19:40)
Yeah, analysis paralysis, right?
Kathy Pace (19:50)
of the same amount of time that you spent talking about all of your products and options and upgrades and do you like this one and do you want that one and what about this and we could do this we could do that. If you spent that much time investing in the connection in the relationship in the commonality and getting the client relaxed creating a personalized experience for them then when you go to make your recommendation
First of all, you don’t have to talk about everything under the sun. You talk about one or two things based on everything you said. This is what I recommend. And the resistance shield is down. The connection is up. That’s where trust happens. Trust happens in the limbic brain. That’s what makes people act. Trust is a feeling. It’s not something you analyze and go, I don’t know. Let me think about it. Let me think about whether I like this person or think about whether I trust them.
really making it easy to buy and not spending so much time talking about products, spend more time creating. I actually made an acronym that will end hesitation because we have to let down the resistance shield, right? We don’t want the resistance, we want receptive clients. So let’s use RECEPT as the acronym.
So we need to create experiences that are relaxed. That’s the RE. Connected, engaging, personalized, and transformational. That’s RE, CPT, RECEPT. We need receptive clients. We need to create sales experiences that are relaxed, connected, engaged, personalized, and transformational. And if we master that, then we’re not going to get
hesitation like we have been getting. So that’s one thing. We just got to get that resistance shield down. And then the other thing is probably when you go to present your price.
In my journey, after I stopped doing all this myself, I started training and leading very, very large sales teams and was responsible for hundreds of salespeople across the United States. So I spent a lot of time in ride alongs and observing designers in the home selling. And what I found is when they would go to present the price, especially on
high -end product, luxury, it’s expensive. They would maybe in an effort to justify the price, because they were nervous to tell the client how much it was going to cost, they would tell them all the details. This is going to be this and that. So many what I call pesky details. You need to have all those details captured because that’s the difference between a right order and a mistake and a remake. So we have to have all that.
But for the client at that moment, pesky details, too much information, they check out. So I would watch these people go into their closing process. The client would check out. The designer would just give more and more information. And what I really found was when you could get the client not so much involved in the pesky details.
but involved in how the room was going to change, how their life was going to change, how the world was going to be transformed. Once these beautiful things were up in the window, then people will pay more for that. They’ll pay more for a transformed life or a transformed room or the pride and self -esteem from being able to host the book club and have their friends over and remove the barriers
have comfortable inviting home, then they will for something that is a product. Product price, know, transformation, value. And so if you don’t want hesitation, those are two kind of two things that can help with
Will Hanke – WTMP (23:52)
I love it.
That’s awesome. yeah, so you’re sitting there watching these guys going into their sales, closed, closing process, right? You mentioned earlier that you were responsible for around 450 million in sales, right? So you watch these guys, you made some, yeah, you made, you made some changes along the way, obviously. What are some of those key lessons besides the one you just shared?
Kathy Pace (24:14)
I was. I am. I have been.
Okay, so I would say
super common mistakes that I observed really early on and changes that I made for the teams that I manage. And these are big name teams. are names, Hunter Douglas and Smith and Noble and three days. These are large sales teams. And one of the things really, I’m gonna say one of the big changes
not so much. It was what what we did or what the designers did when they went in the home, but it was also what they did before they went in the home because I have a little prompt. I’m not going to turn it on because it’s obnoxious, but I’ve used this in so many sales training. Okay, have you ever seen this monkey with the symbols and if I were to
turn it on literally it would clang and it would be loud and it would be obnoxious and I call this guy the monkey of self -doubt and this is gonna make sense to your listeners but they probably haven’t thought about it like this before when the client makes an appointment with you they have about 30 seconds of elation
I’ve been thinking about this forever. I’m finally gonna get started on my project. But about 30 seconds into it, they go, holy crap, what have I just done? I just invited a salesperson and a designer to my home. They’re gonna judge me, they’re gonna make me expensive, designers are expensive, they’re gonna be, that’s gonna look like them, they’re gonna have their nose in there, what am I, who, I don’t, I have no idea, is it gonna be a salesy person who shows up? This monkey starts clinging in their ear.
Will Hanke – WTMP (25:57)
Yeah.
Kathy Pace (26:16)
And the longer you let that monkey clang and be loud, if you wait the two or three days until your appointment, that monkey just gets louder and their self -doubt grows. And if you’re having a problem with clients canceling appointments, it’s that. That’s what’s happening. Self -doubt from our clients is a real thing.
It’s not just because the, anyway, self, the monkey kind of takes over. So the faster you can connect with that client, there’s that word again, stretch to connect. You can connect with that client in a relaxed way and start to talk about their project and let them see you’re just a regular person like them who really wants to help them, whose desire is to help, not to sell. Then.
The monkey will quiet down, your cancellation rate will go down, and when you get to the door, you’ll be opening the door to friends, not strangers. Strangers have a resistance shield, friends don’t. So I would say one common mistake is to go to the door of stranger. Don’t do that. There are some businesses who have appointment setters.
A couple of large companies that I worked with have that or had that. And the appointment setter was the one who made sure the right time, the right place. confirmed the appointment. The designer got there. The designer was a complete and total stranger. And what that meant was that monkey had been going for however long it had been. So that’s a big mistake. Quiet the monkey. Quiet the monkey. The second…
Big mistake, big, big, big, big, big mistake is when you email your proposal and you don’t present that price in person. And that’s sometimes difficult to do because if you have large projects, they’re complex, they’re all of those things. But if you don’t have a easy way,
to at least get the client in the ballpark price wise and you leave without telling them the price. Guess who starts to talk again? Same old monkey, same monkey. my God, how much is it gonna be? It’s gonna be so much. And self doubt starts to creep in and then they open the email with, they don’t remember.
all the fantastic reasons why you chose what you chose. They don’t remember how the room was going to be transformed, how their life was going to be changed, how they were going to have a comfortable inviting home. They don’t think about that. They’re standing in line at Trader Joe’s, you know, and they pop open the email and scroll to the very bottom and they go, holy cow, $6 ,548. Are you kidding me? That’s, and you have, you have no ability
Will Hanke – WTMP (29:12)
Hahaha
Kathy Pace (29:23)
counter that, to frame that, to… So if you’re wondering why you send a quote or a proposal and then you get ghosted…
That’s part of the reason as well. So two big mistakes and they both have to do with the monkey because our clients are human beings and they are afraid of making a mistake. This is a somewhat complex purchase window treatments. There’s a lot having to do with them. They are expensive in case you haven’t noticed. So letting that monkey of
Will Hanke – WTMP (29:56)
Hahaha
Kathy Pace (30:03)
control the sales situation is.
change that you got to change right now if you want to end hesitation, if you want to hear yes, especially in the environment that we’re in right now. People are fearful. They don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring. They are afraid of what tomorrow will bring in many, many ways. Anything that you can do to remove that fear and
guide the client with empathy, you know what they’re up against. You know that they’re embarrassed about their home. You know that they can’t invite their friends in and that there’s things related to their windows that are keeping them from having the people that they love in their home. And you can solve that. You have got to get really good at what you do because if you aren’t really good at what you do, you’re not solving problems.
Presenting a quote is not that helpful, especially presenting a quote for something somebody can’t afford to buy. Not helpful. And have you ever noticed this? Clients don’t get mad at themselves for not having enough money to buy something when you price something they can’t afford. They don’t get mad at themselves. They get mad at you. So we’ve got to figure out how to have money conversations
Will Hanke – WTMP (31:21)
Yeah.
Kathy Pace (31:29)
you know, get past the fear, get really, really good at lowering the resistance shield. And that’s what I’ve dedicated my career to, really.
Will Hanke – WTMP (31:41)
Yeah, yeah. Thank you. For a lot of the pretty much our entire audience is small businesses, small business owners that are trying to succeed, right? What are some of immediate steps they can take to really improve their sales process?
Kathy Pace (31:49)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm, absolutely.
Okay,
I’m gonna
I’ll to keep, I’ll practice what I preach, simple, keep it simple. Two things, what is convenient for you is not going to get you the success that you need. You need to create everything that you do. Saw, open, get out of your heads.
Cut open the client’s head, walk around inside there for a minute, view the world through their eyes, and create and do a selling experience that’s convenient for them. So for example, we’ve all been guilty of this. You can’t get appointments all day every day. Clients will change appointments all the time when it’s convenient for the client. We can’t change appointments.
times or said just because it’s more convenient for us because we’re already be going to be on that side of town because you know it turns out that’s the only day we can get our i’m going to be i’m going to be flipping here but it’s the only day we can get our hair done or whatever we can’t do things that are convenient for us it’s not fast efficiency get in get out move on to the next appointment get in get out that’s more convenient for us believe me
That isn’t what’s going to lead to success. So what’s convenient for the client generally is not convenient for you. It just isn’t. So we have to do that. And then I’m gonna really say this. Like I did when I was solving my puzzle back in way back in the day, I took…
to in that one year, figure it out or get out, took invested into really expensive courses that involved me getting on an airplane and staying in a hotel. So it was significant. And I learned from the experts, I read books, I got this whole tower of sales books back behind me. I read the expert, what all the experts said, I listened to podcasts like yours.
Will Hanke – WTMP (33:42)
Okay.
Kathy Pace (33:57)
or listen to tapes back in the day in the turd mobile when I was grabbing groceries or going from appointment to appointment. And what those so -called experts told me many times when I tried them, they were tactics. So I’m going to say throw that out the window, throw out all those things that we have been taught.
seven ways to overcome objections. Use the puppy dog clothes. Use the reduce it to the ridiculous. Use the half Nelson clothes. You know, my favorite just twist their arm until you’ve got them trapped. Yeah, no, those things. That’s get rid of those. Get rid of those in favor of human connection and relationship sales.
Will Hanke – WTMP (34:43)
Yeah. Yeah. And for somebody maybe who’s 20 or 30 years into it, that might be a challenge, right?
Kathy Pace (34:51)
yes, however, yeah now
Can I just tell, I want to tell you about one, because this is so poignant, one person who did take, one of many people who learned modern sales mastery and his name is Rich. He’s here in California down in San Diego, little way down the freeway from me. And I have, I use his testimonial.
one of many, but one of the things he said is, I was my own worst enemy. I kept doing the same thing in the same way, partly because I didn’t know any better, but partly because that’s how I’d always done it. And when I had kind of a, when he had kind of an interrupter like, I hadn’t thought of it that way before, or I just didn’t know.
there was a different way to do it. Doing it the way we’ve always done it is if we’re either growing or we’re dying. Doing it the way we’ve always done it, that’s dying in my opinion. We need to thrive. We want thriving sales. We need growth. We want sales growth. Then I, and probably you too.
And people listening to this podcast are like this as well. They wouldn’t be listening if they weren’t people who want to grow, want to learn, have a growth learning mindset. So there is a different way to do it than the way you’ve always done it, even if you’ve been in this forever and a
Will Hanke – WTMP (36:30)
Yeah, I like that. That’s very smart, right? I I spend time every morning just on YouTube or somewhere trying to learn something. And I think the smart business owners do the same.
Kathy Pace (36:40)
huh.
You’re investing in yourself. You’re investing in your skill. There is nothing else. There is no other investment you can make. I’ll say this, you and I talked about this before. You can invest in your marketing all you want, but if you can’t sell, then all the leads in the world are not going to help you very much. You’re going to be very, very good at capitalizing
Will Hanke – WTMP (37:02)
Right.
Kathy Pace (37:09)
every single opportunity that comes your way. Leeds are a little less plentiful these days. They’re much more expensive these days, and so capitalizing on every single one of those, getting the maximum, like squeezing every bit of juiciness out of the pomegranate, which is hard to get juice from right now, it’s hard to get juice from, is super
Will Hanke – WTMP (37:29)
Good.
Yeah, very much so. So that was kind of my next question for you. With the leads getting more expensive, you know, and maybe a little bit harder to come by, what are some effective strategies that people can use to maximize the lead conversion that they are getting?
Kathy Pace (37:36)
Okay.
You know, I would say you
I would say, again, go back to your sales process because whether it’s written down in a nice little binder on a shelf or a PDF document that says, you know, our sales playbook, or whether it’s just that thing that you always do, and you have to really kind of look at it kind of step by step. That’s really the, that’s what I do. I help.
people look at the process that they have now. But you can do this yourself. Look at it kind of step by step. Where am I getting resistance? Where does my client relax and become receptive? When you learn something new, a new way to do something, don’t just try it once and go, well, that didn’t work.
Sales is a practice. It’s like yoga. I don’t know about you if you’re a forever yogin, but you don’t get into those pretzel poses the first time or the second time or the tenth time you try it. But it doesn’t mean that you just go, forget it. This is not for me. If it’s important for you to get into the pretzel pose or get to yes, which I think it is for all of our listeners, if it’s important to get to yes, then you need practice. And so
being able to look at your process, practice different ways of doing things rather than being stuck. if the way that you’ve always been doing it isn’t getting you the results that you want right now, then why would you keep doing it the exact same way? That doesn’t make sense. So.
I would say if I’m being flippant again, because sometimes that’s my humor, it’s like, stop doing what doesn’t work and start doing what does. But that’s probably easier said than done. And really, we don’t need…
If I really think about this, we don’t need more information. We don’t need more sales tactics. don’t need more. We don’t, truthfully, we don’t even need another course. There is plenty of information out there about how to do it. It’s like losing weight. We all know there’s plenty of ways to lose weight, but when you really get down to doing it, what you sometimes need is a friend to link arms with you, come alongside, show you, encourage you, motivate you, inspire you, teach you, help you.
understand what’s really going to get to success. So you can learn it through the School of Hard Knocks 100%. Absolutely. That’s what I feel like. If there has been a change in our business environment right now, we’ve gone back. Even for those of us who have been around for a long, long time, we’ve gone back to the School of Hard Knocks because the stuff we have been doing isn’t working.
because the environment and the client is different. So traditional sales training taught a lot of people how to close a lot of sales. We’re now in an environment where no one wants to be closed and everyone’s resistant to a salesperson and they have less money. So we’re back to the school of hard knocks and what were the way that we’re doing it isn’t isn’t working as well. So we need
kind of search our heart and figure out, we got to figure this out. Like our life depends on it. You want to know why? Because it does.
Will Hanke – WTMP (41:28)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s great. So I know that you have some resources for our listeners. Before we talk a little bit about that, how do you stay motivated in this industry? What keeps you going?
Kathy Pace (41:42)
I think curiosity is the superpower of thriving. And so I am always, huh, I wonder how that works or how can I make that or what can I learn or how does Will make his business go around or how does, I think that when we really truly want
to see what makes somebody tick when we really want to get somebody, then we have a lot more motivation to change how we do things maybe because as a rule in case you haven’t noticed we’re kind of resistant to change. We don’t like it. Change feels risky. So change feels risky. But when you really want to help. So I would say
If your motivation is not just to sell more… Now believe me, there’s nothing wrong with that. The end result of everything I do is to help everybody listening sell more. There’s nothing wrong with the motivation being to sell more. But if that’s the driving force… But if we’re curious
How can I really help this person? Do I have what they need? Am I the best person for them to buy for? Is my product or solution the best solution for them? Because that kind of authenticity, that kind of curiosity, that is different. Everybody else isn’t doing that right now. They’re trying to go on more appointments and buy more leads and get in and get out and being frustrated because more people are saying, let me think about it and get
And so, you know, I would say, start there. Start with a genuine curiosity and a real desire to help people, not to sell them something, but to help them. And that will keep you motivated every single day. And that is what makes me get up. Literally, I have been hard at work creating a mastery course, which means I’m like
I’m a people person, but I have been head down, taking all this stuff and putting it in a way that I can serve it up. I have been on my computer all day every day, but what motivates me to do that when I thrive, when I’m interacting with people, when I’m face to face or screen to screen helping people, that’s what makes me come alive.
But I’ve been working on this and motivated to work on this because I really genuinely know how needed upping people’s sales game now is. so it’s motivating. And it is genuinely needed for your listeners. When someone calls you to their home, their home right now doesn’t feel good.
It’s not their haven like it should be. That’s what a home should be, but it’s not. There’s something wrong. It’s not comfortable. It’s not inviting. It’s all those things. And if you genuinely care enough for the person in front of you and say, I can change that. I have products and solutions that can change that. You have such a valuable.
service that you are providing. You change people’s lives. don’t just, you don’t sell window treatments, you change lives. And that sounds Pollyanna and it sounds all whatever, but I absolutely know it’s true. And you know it, your listeners know it. They’ve had the client who cries when they see the solution up in their window and said, my God, I never thought I could have something this beautiful. It is amazing. I never could have done this without you.
That is motivating. But right now when everybody’s hesitating, we aren’t hearing as much of that. And so it’s harder to keep our motivation. So we have to get better at getting people to actually be able to say yes, because only when they say yes can their life be transformed.
Will Hanke – WTMP (45:53)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, definitely less less at bats, right for our audience right now.
Kathy Pace (46:07)
Mm -hmm. Yes. So that’s that squeeze every bit out of the pomegranate. You know, there’s not as many seeds as there were before. And so your interactions have to be fruitful. They just they know it’s not you’re not going to close. I hate that word close, by the way. You’re not going to confirm every sale. You’re not. But you’ll be shocked.
When you really change your why, your focus to helping people, to creating this receptive experience that lets the client feel like you really get them, how much more often people will say yes, how less resistant they will be to your solutions, how they will, especially when you learn to talk about money, which is the elephant in the
You’ve got to crack that code. When you learn to talk about money in a way that lets people lower their resistance shield. And that’s not common in our society. We’ve been taught from the time we were young, don’t talk about money. know, money is power. Guard your purse, guard your wallet. So learning how
handle that super important, especially now when you have fewer opportunities. It is more important than
Will Hanke – WTMP (47:39)
Yeah, yeah. So tell me about the course you’re working on. I know that you’ve been putting that together for a while now and a new version of it, I guess,
Kathy Pace (47:47)
a new version. is 2 .0 or 5 .0. I don’t know what because I and I call it the modern sales way even though it’s very much the relationship based style of selling that I started working on 30 years ago and I call it the modern sales way because I want to contrast it really with almost everything we’ve learned in traditional sales
because sales and even sales training has not been very innovative. There’s really been nothing new under the sun for quite a long time. We’ve been learning the same things in just different ways over and over again, how to overcome objections, know, all those things. We’ve been how to price condition, how to how to all those kinds of things
haven’t really changed for a very long time.
I call it the modern sales way because I think now the innovation, if there is innovation in this and let this sink in, the innovation is that we’ve changed as a society, we’ve changed as people, we want genuine connected human interactions. We don’t want transactions. so modern sales mastery is a eight week, it’s not just a course. Like I said, we don’t need more information. We don’t need a bunch
videos and videos and videos you just watch more videos until you can’t watch another video. It is a way of in kind of bite size over the course of eight weeks it is a personalized experience working directly with me in a super small group environment and yes there is learning there are lessons in every module there are lessons and guides and tools and all of those kinds of things but there’s also
Will Hanke – WTMP (49:22)
You
Kathy Pace (49:47)
group coaching weekly for that entire eight weeks so that you can take what you learned that week, information in the bite -sized piece that you learned, go practice it in your appointments like yoga, go practice it. It’s probably not going to go well the first time around. Come back, have some questions, get them answered, listen to what other people try and experiment. Learning together in a small
Will Hanke – WTMP (50:05)
Hahaha
Kathy Pace (50:17)
less than 10, 10 or less. What happens is that the collective group moves forward so much faster because of that interaction with each other and because of that direct interaction with a coach who has been there, who’s done what you’ve done, has taught hundreds of thousands, if
thousands literally I have interviewed I cannot tell you how many people I’ve interviewed hired and trained over the course of my career and Been responsible literally responsible at the executive level in very large corporations for their success And if they aren’t successful, I’m out So
Being able to learn in that kind of environment, I think that is the delicious difference of this particular, I’ll call it a course, but I’d really rather call it a experience. Learning the modern sales way with me is a small group learning environment. It is intense, it is focused, but in about two hours a week, over eight weeks, it is the fastest.
most efficient, most effective way, I’m going to just say to get off the sales roller coaster because that’s what we’re on right now. I get yes, I get no, I get hesitation, I get enough, I get to have enough to pay off all the and then I don’t have enough and then I have enough and then I don’t have enough. That’s not thriving, that’s surviving. So that’s the Modern Sales Mastery is the name of the course.
It is super brand new. As a matter of fact, have not quite even launched the founding member version of it. I’m about ready to do that. And in this, that group of 10 will get even more up close and personal interaction with me because I have lots of testimonials and great…
results from people who have taken from me in the past, but this is a little bit different platform, a little bit different learning environment and so it’s a win -win. I’m going to get great results from the people who take this course with me. I’ll put in extra time, extra effort. They’ll
fantastic results, all get fantastic testimonials, and that will allow me to get this course out into the world to even more people who need it. So it’s win -win all the way
Will Hanke – WTMP (52:58)
That’s awesome. So a little sneak peek inside the course, the not course that you’re putting together. Are there any? Yeah. Yeah. Are there any? Right.
Kathy Pace (53:04)
The NOT course. The NOT sales training sales training. We should hashtag that. Unlearning. Un -sales training. That’s what I’m going to call it. Un -sales training. Huh. There we go. You heard it here, folks, for the very first time. Modern Sales Mastery, the un -sales training. That will get you to ass.
Will Hanke – WTMP (53:17)
There you go.
Good, great. On sales training. So inside the inside your system, are there any tools or resources that you found particularly useful that you could recommend to the listeners?
Kathy Pace (53:39)
Well, 100%, remember I told you we’ve got to master the money conversation. Money is the elephant in the room. Like literally picture this, when you walk into a client’s home and you’re designing in their family room and there’s you and your client, between the two of you is a giant elephant’s rear end. That is is separate, that is money.
Will Hanke – WTMP (54:05)
Okay.
Kathy Pace (54:08)
When they say, let me think about it, what are they thinking about? Yeah, did they give me the right product for the right price, the right value? When they need to talk to Frank about it, guess what they need to talk about? Money. When they’re getting other quotes, it’s about money. When they haven’t seen what they like, it’s because what means I haven’t seen what I like for the money that you proposed. It’s all about money. And so being able to have the right tools, the selling,
the money the elephant in the room it’s module three by the way the third weekend because we got to start practicing that early on because that’s hard to learn and there is tools for budget estimating and all that kind of
Will Hanke – WTMP (54:51)
Wow, OK. So a whole bunch of different resources, tools, things to grow. That’s great. That’s
Kathy Pace (54:55)
Mm -hmm. Yes. Pre -appointment communication. There’s a whole communication handbook with it all spelled out for you. Here’s some great ways that you can quiet that monkey in multiple different ways. Because truthfully, trust is not developed like that. Like when you decide to enter a relationship for life with somebody, you don’t just do it like that. You do it because…
They’ve shown you in multiple different ways that they show up and they can be trusted and that you want the same things. And so your pre -appointment communication and the multiple different ways that you can go about that quickly and easily and efficiently, if you’re a business owner or a salesperson, you need an efficient process for that. There’s a whole communication guidebook. So there’s a lot of great tools.
Will Hanke – WTMP (55:46)
I love it. Yeah, sounds like a great resource. So tell me how people can find out more about the course, about you, how can they get in touch with you, that sort of
Kathy Pace (55:56)
Okay, fantastic. So I created, so I have a website, kathypace .com, but I created a special landing page for your marketing panes listeners, just for you. It’s kathypace .com forward slash marketing panes. And there’ll be a picture of me anyway to welcome you. And I have a couple of things there. The first thing is,
Will Hanke – WTMP (56:20)
Yeah.
Kathy Pace (56:25)
guide. I redid it for marketing panes a little bit specifically. It’s called Thriving Modern Sales and it literally helps… remember I say I help people look at their processes and compare how modern, how traditional, what are you doing that you might not even know that you’re doing. It’s all about this
comparing traditional sales with modern sales and how modern is your practice. And it’s free, it’s just a guide, literally has a little self -check quiz or self -check at the end of it and nobody’s looking over your shoulder so you can be honest with yourself and really kind of see, I might wanna pay attention to this, I might wanna pay attention to that. So it has that guide in it. And then
Will Hanke – WTMP (57:02)
that’s great.
Right?
Kathy Pace (57:16)
you request that guide and I send it to you, I will also give you a link to join the interest list. It’s not a sale. Yes, I want to buy it. I’m interested in this course. And then here’s something else that I have for your listeners. So anyway, there’s an interest list to join the course, especially this founding member’s initial course.
is super value packed. But for your listeners who take any of the modern sales mastery between now and the end of the year, and there will be multiple, it’s a small group environment, but there will be multiple releases of the course. 2024, yes, we better say that. I will add something again at the end of
eight weeks together, I will add a one -on -one, just you and me strategy session that will take the things that you learned about modern sales and experience, a selling experience that gets to yes, and help you personalize it and customize it even more to your business, your brand.
Will Hanke – WTMP (58:38)
if you hear the dog barking.
Kathy Pace (58:39)
dog
Will Hanke – WTMP (58:41)
sorry. Yeah.
Kathy Pace (58:42)
That’s no problem, no problem whatsoever. Can you cut out dog in the background? just a dog?
Will Hanke – WTMP (58:45)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she’s taking a minute. Yeah, no, well, yeah, we’ll just do it again. Just start over with, and for your listeners, I’ll also throw in that kind of
Kathy Pace (58:50)
no, so, yeah, okay. Okay.
Okay. Okay, yes. Okay, and for your listeners, Will, when they come through that kathypaste .com slash marketing panes, between now and the end of the year, 2024, at the end of the course, I will also include a one -on -one individual, just you and me, just them and
strategy session and what that does is take the things, the methodology, the signature experience that you learned with for our industry but personalize it even more for your business, for your strengths, for your selling process, for the way that you do things already. Now you don’t have to throw out everything and start over. Nobody wants to do that. So that strategy session I sell those for
$500 those one -on -one. I will include that as
Will Hanke – WTMP (59:56)
Wow, thank you. That’s really nice. That’s really kind. Thank you so much.
Kathy Pace (1:00:00)
You’re welcome. I want this course in the hands of more people because I know how much it will help them and that’s why I want to do
Will Hanke – WTMP (1:00:06)
Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like it’s going to be fantastic. Kathy, thank you so much for all the things that you’ve shared today. I think that if somebody didn’t pick something up from this, they’re crazy. There’s so many things, you know, just doing something different and realizing, I think that sales is it’s a test, right? There’s no just one formula, but getting things in the right direction, testing different things, making connections and relationships.
Kathy Pace (1:00:26)
Right.
Will Hanke – WTMP (1:00:34)
Thank you for all the things that you’ve shared today.
Kathy Pace (1:00:37)
you are so welcome. It’s been my pleasure and I’m really, really appreciative. I love what you’re doing for the industry as well because if you can sell more, once you sell more, you’re gonna wanna get in front of more people. And when you get in front of more people, that’s where you come in. So I think we go hand in hand, Will, you and I, it’s a good partnership. And that’s why I’m really appreciative that you invited me
Will Hanke – WTMP (1:00:56)
yeah. Yeah. Great stuff. Thanks again. Thank you. If this is your first time listening to the podcast or if you’ve been listening for 30 plus episodes, thank you for being a listener. And if you haven’t subscribed to us, you know, make sure you do that so you know when the next episode comes out. Make sure to look for our YouTube channel. We put all kinds of stuff out there on the YouTube channel.
Kathy Pace (1:01:02)
Thank
Will Hanke – WTMP (1:01:24)
Just look up Window Treatment Marketing Pros, were easy to find on there. Kathy, thank you so much. We’re gonna go now and hopefully that everybody was able to pick something up and really grow their business.
Kathy Pace (1:01:39)
I hope so. Let’s go sell something today. That would be fantastic. Let’s thrive.
Will Hanke – WTMP (1:01:43)
Awesome. Thank you so much.
Kathy Pace (1:01:45)
Bye